Tag: Depression

Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)

At any given time in the year, someone may be experiencing seasonal affective disorder (SAD). Spring is in full bloom in some parts of the world, but here in the United States, the amount of daylight is lessening each day as autumn nears.

SAD is a form of depression that typically occurs annually in certain seasons. Between 10% and 20% of recurrent depression cases follow a seasonal pattern. Although the predominant pattern involves depression in the fall and winter months with remission in spring and summer, many people experience the reverse.

Regardless of the season, recurrent depression can take a serious toll. Below are 11 ways to help protect against SAD and keep you feeling happy and healthy in every season.

1. Know the Signs and Symptoms of SAD.
Educate yourself on SAD and its symptoms to recognize the signs when they occur. Common symptoms associated with SAD may include:

• Sleeping more than usual
• Losing interest in activities and hobbies
• Lack of energy
• Difficulty focusing
• Unusual changes in appetite
• Feelings of hopelessness, sadness, or emptiness
• Persistent negative thinking

2. Exercise
A study published in The Cochrane Review reviewed 30 clinical trials and concluded that exercise does improve depression symptoms, including those associated with SAD. A regular exercise routine throughout the year can help stabilize mood and keep the body healthy. Exercising outdoors provides the added benefit of increased sunlight exposure, especially during fall and winter’s shorter daylight hours.

3. Eat Healthy
Research has revealed that diet can play a significant role in depression. A study published in the American Journal of Psychiatry revealed that women who consumed a diet high in vegetables, fruits, proteins, and whole grains had a lower risk of depression than those with a diet high in refined grains, processed foods, fried foods, and added sugars. Eating a balanced, healthy diet can help protect you against the symptoms of depression, no matter the season.

It is not unusual for a person who is depressed to crave carbohydrates, as they promote the production of serotonin (a mood-boosting neurochemical) in the brain. Help keep your brain chemistry balanced by choosing healthy carbohydrates such as lentils, brown rice, and potatoes rather than refined sugars and white bread. Eating junk food causes a sudden spike in insulin, which later leaves you with a blood sugar drop (i.e. sugar crash) and you could be left feeling lethargic and blue.

Many studies have linked both depression and SAD specifically with omega-3 fatty acid deficiencies. Omega-3 fatty acids may help serotonin pass through cell membranes. Because low levels of serotonin are linked to depression, eating foods high in omega-3s (salmon, herring, and anchovies) or taking a supplement may help to stabilize mood.
Although studies have been mixed, it is thought that vitamin D may play a role in seasonal depression. In the winter season, when your exposure to sunlight decreases, so does your vitamin D production. Consider eating foods high in vitamin D (salmon, tuna, fortified milk, egg yolks, etc.) or take a daily supplement.

4. Practice Good Sleep Hygiene
Good sleep habits can help prevent seasonal depression. Keeping a routine sleep schedule can help regulate your body’s natural cycles and rhythms and keep hormones in balance. Getting at least eight hours of restful sleep each night is ideal. Going to bed when it is dark outside and waking up with the sun will also help increase your exposure to sunlight and help balance your circadian rhythm.

5. Get Outside
Take the opportunity to spend time outdoors whenever you can. Even if it is cold outside, bundle up in some warm clothes and take a brief walk outdoors. Get involved in any outdoor activities you can, even in winter. You might consider skiing or snowboarding or going outside with your child to make a snowman.

6. Increase Natural Light in Your Environment
Sometimes a simple break from your routine environment can boost your mood and give you a new perspective.
Maximize the light in your home by opening blinds, drawing back curtains, trimming bushes around windows, and keeping furniture away from windows where possible. Skylights are an excellent way to increase the light in your home and keep your house warmer in the winter months. Using bright décor and light upholstery can also help to brighten your home.
Try to work next to a window in order to maximize your exposure to sunlight when indoors. If you work in an office, consider talking to your boss about moving your desk closer to a window if possible.

7. Find a Hobby
If you know you are prone to experiencing SAD, start preparing yourself early by having a good mindset going into the season. Find a hobby or two that you enjoy to keep you feeling busy and goal-oriented. Having a new challenge or project to work on can help improve your mood and prevent feelings of stagnancy.

8. Socialize
This one might seem obvious, but spending time with family and friends can help prevent and alleviate the symptoms of SAD. Unfortunately, people suffering from depression tend to isolate themselves from their loved ones. Help protect yourself from SAD by keeping a regular schedule of social activities. If you are already experiencing symptoms, you may benefit from a support group that could help you connect with others who have similar experiences.

9. Take a Vacation
If all else fails when the weather is making you blue, take a vacation to a sunnier climate if you’re able. Scheduling your vacation during the winter can help give you a break from the cold and increase your exposure to sunlight when you may need it the most.
Even if you experience SAD in the spring and summer seasons, you may still benefit from a vacation, and it doesn’t have to be one you spend much money on. Sometimes a simple break from your routine environment can boost your mood and give you a new perspective.

10. Use Light Therapy
Light therapy has proven to be an effective treatment for many with SAD. Studies have shown that 30 minutes of daily light therapy helps to improve mood and boost energy levels. Several different devices are designed to provide necessary light, such as dawn simulation, portable light boxes, special light bulbs, and battery-powered head visors. These devices are designed to emit light that mimics the sun’s rays. It is best to be cautious when trying out new light therapies, and always talk to your physician if you are feeling unsure of personal safety and health precautions.

11. Try Talk Therapy
Talk therapy—particularly cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)—has been shown to be effective for treating SAD. In fact, a recent study (Contie and Wein 2013) showed that individuals who received cognitive behavioral therapy had less recurrence of SAD than those treated with light therapy, which is typically thought to be one of the most effective treatments.

5 Ways to Get Your Unwanted Emotions Under Control

Use these 5 strategies and your emotions won’t get the better of you.

Emotions are a vital part of our everyday lives. Whether you’re having a good laugh over a funny text message or feeling frustrated while stuck in rush hour traffic, you know that the highs and lows you experience can significantly affect your well-being.

Your ability to regulate those emotions, in turn, affects how you’re perceived by the people around you. If you’re laughing at that text during a serious meeting, you’re likely to get the “stink eye” from the others in the room. On the other hand, if you react with rage at a driver who cuts you off in traffic, you can engender unwanted attention and perhaps even risk your life.

The study of emotions is far from an exact science. Psychologists still debate the body-mind connection in emotional reactivity, don’t have a complete taxonomy of emotions, and are even uncertain about whether emotions are the cause or result of the way we construe the world. However, there are advances being made in understanding the concept of emotion regulation, the process of influencing the way emotions are felt and expressed.

Stanford University psychologist James Gross (2001) proposed a 4-stage model to capture the sequence of events that occurs when our emotions are stimulated.  In this model, that he calls the “modal model,” a situation grabs our attention, which in turns leads us to appraise or think about the meaning of the situation. Our emotional responses result from the way we appraise our experiences.

Some emotional responses are fine and require no particular regulation. If the emotion is appropriate to the situation and it helps you feel better, then there’s no need to worry about changing the way you handle things. Laughing when others are laughing is one example of an appropriate reaction that helps you feel better. Expressing road rage may make you feel better, but it’s not appropriate or particularly adaptive. You could express your frustration in other ways that allow you to release those angry feelings, or you could instead try to find a way to calm yourself down.

Calming yourself down when you’re frustrated may be more easily said than done. If you’re one of those people who tends to fly off the handle when aggravated, expressing your outrage to everyone within earshot (or on the other end of an email), your emotions could be costing you important relationships, and  your health, so keeping a good and healthy relationships with your loved one is important, sharing time together and in intimacy, maybe using toys like the beautiful vibrating panties you can find here.

An inability to regulate emotions is, according to Gross and his collaborator Hooria Jazaieri (2014), at the root of psychological disorders such as depression and borderline personality disorder.  Although more research is needed to understand the specific role of emotional regulation in psychopathology, this seems like a promising area of investigation. For example, people with social anxiety disorder can benefit from interventions that help them change the way they appraise social situations as is shown by research on cognitive behavioral therapy.  Many other people who are functioning at a less than optimal level of psychological health, Gross and Jazaieri maintain, could similarly benefit from education about how better to manage their emotions in daily life and some use the medical cannabis treatment to help with their optimal health functioning, read about the marijuana doctor online PA for more information on how it works, how to get it and the benefits for your health.
Fortunately, you can handle most of the work involved in regulating your emotions well before the provoking situation even occurs. By preparing yourself ahead of time, you’ll find that the problematic emotion goes away before it interferes with your life:

1. Select the situation. Avoid circumstances that trigger your unwanted emotions.  If you know that you’re most likely to get angry when you’re in a hurry (and you become angry when others force you to wait), then don’t leave things for the last minute. Get out of the house or office 10 minutes before you need to, and you won’t be bothered so much by pedestrians, cars, or slow elevators.  Similarly, if there’s an acquaintance you find completely annoying, then figure out a way to keep from bumping into that person.

2. Modify the situation. Perhaps the emotion you’re trying to reduce is disappointment. You’re always hoping, for example, to serve the “perfect” meal for friends and family, but invariably something goes wrong because you’ve aimed too high. Modify the situation by finding recipes that are within your range of ability so that you can pull off the meal. You may not be able to construct the ideal soufflé, but you manage a pretty good frittata.

3. Shift your attentional focus.  Let’s say that you constantly feel inferior to the people around you who always look great. You’re at the gym, and can’t help but notice the regulars on the weight machines who manage to lift three times as much as you can. Drawn to them like a magnet, you can’t help but watch with wonder and envy at what they’re able to accomplish. Shifting your focus away from them and onto your fellow gym rats who pack less punch will help you feel more confident about your own abilities. Even better, focus on what you’re doing, and in the process, you’ll eventually gain some of the strength you desire.

4. Change your thoughts.  At the core of our deepest emotions are the beliefs that drive them.  You feel sad when you believe to have lost something, anger when you decide that an important goal is thwarted, and happy anticipation when you believe something good is coming your way. By changing your thoughts you may not be able to change the situation but you can at least change the way you believe the situation is affecting you. In cognitive reappraisal, you replace the thoughts that lead to unhappiness with thoughts that lead instead to joy or at least contentment.  People with a social anxiety disorder may believe that they’ll make fools of themselves in front of others for their social gaffes.  They can be helped to relax by interventions that help them recognize that people don’t judge them as harshly as they believe.

5. Change your response. If all else fails, and you can’t avoid, modify, shift your focus, or change your thoughts, and that emotion comes pouring out, the final step in emotion regulation is to get control of your response. Your heart may be beating out a steady drumroll of unpleasant sensations when you’re made to be anxious or angry.  Take deep breaths and perhaps close your eyes in order to calm yourself down. Similarly, if you can’t stop laughing when everyone else seems serious or sad, gather your inner resources and force yourself at least to change your facial expression if not your mood.

This 5-step approach is one that you can readily adapt to the most characteristic situations that cause you trouble.  With the Kelowna Therapy you will understand and know your emotional triggers that can help you avoid the problems in the first place. Being able to alter your thoughts and reactions will build your confidence in your own ability to cope. With practice, you’ll be able to turn negatives into positives, and each time, gain emotional fulfillment.

Copyright Susan Krauss Whitbourne 2015

  • Gross, J. J. (2001). Emotion regulation in adulthood: Timing is everything. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 10, 214-219. DOI: 10.1111/1467-8721.00152
  • Gross, J. J., & Jazaieri, H. (2014). Emotion, emotion regulation, and psychopathology: An effective science perspective. Clinical Psychological Science,

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